Hikari no Naka de
by Dreamchasereternity
Summary: An old enemy is back and looking for revenge on Kurama. The only problem is he doesn't know. But three psycho demons do and they're off to Tokyo to keep Kurama safe! But can they protect him from the greatest threat to his life and sanity: THEM!
1. The Beginning of the Beginning

Dream: Well hello everyone! Welcome to the first chapter of the sequel to Zero's Curse!

Zero: *twirls finger* whoopee

Dream: *tapes Zero's mouth shut* 

Zero: MMMF! *scratching at tape*

Dream: As I was saying...The title Hikari no Naka de means Amidst the Light. The original title was Midnight Wishes but I like this better. So yeah...oh and in case anyone reading this hasn't read my other fanfics *cough* Mike *cough* this first chapter will have sort of a summary of what's happened in the previous stories so you don't have to read them....Even though I wish you would . 

Zero: *rips the tape off his mouth* ITAI!!!!!

Dream: baka ratbat...

Zero: I am not! 

Dream: are too and do the disclaimer

Zero: fine. Dream does not own Yu Yu Hakusho. If she did then there would be muffins raining from the sky. She also does not own Flash or Hinote. She owns everyone else that's in the story for now. And the pairings, for anyone that doesn't know are Kurama/Autumn Hiei/Flash 

Dream: Oh! Anyone that sent in characters I'm going to try and get them in the story ASAP. Most likely before chapter 10 because I have to set the story up within the next few chapters. And if anyone wants to be in the story there's still time so check my profile thingy for details. 

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The Beginning of the Beginning:

          The silence of the warm spring night was broken only by the sift thud of running feet on the beach. Sand was being kicked up as four figures ran along. Three of them were chasing the fourth. The one being chased was a girl. 

          She was wearing jeans, an orange tank top with the image of a phoenix on it and a long light blue jacket shirt. Her camouflage sneakers kicked up the sand as she ran with her blackish brown hair blowing behind.

          She was running from three lizard-like men. They had yellow scales and reptilian red eyes. They had lizard tails swishing behind them. Their faces were curved into grins as they chased the girl. Two of them were carrying clubs and the third, their leader, was carrying a poisoned dagger.

          The girl looked over her shoulder at the lizard men. This proved to be a stupid thing to do because she lost her footing and fell face first into the sand. After sitting up and spitting some sand out of her mouth she noticed the lizards were surrounding her. 

          "Oh poo..." The girl muttered.

          The leader of the lizards smirked and raised his dagger to strike, "Well thanks for the fun chase, little missy, but now we really have to be finishing our mission..."

          "LITTLE MISSY?!?" The girl made a gagging motion, "Never call me that again!!! It's sickening!"

          The leader blinked, "You do realize I'm about to kill you right?"

          "Yes but little missy??? Couldn't you say something better than that? I mean honestly if I'm gonna die I don't want to be completely humiliated beforehand!" 

          The lizards looked at each other with expressions that clearly said 'What the hell?' The leader raised his dagger again to strike. The girl looked around frantically for some way to defend herself. Her gaze fell upon a seagull feather lying on the ground nearby. She smirked as she grabbed it and began to focus her energy into it. As the lizard brought his dagger down for the kill the girl brought the feather up to meet it.

          A clash of metal was heard and the lizards were shocked to see that instead of a feather the girl now held a shining white bladed sword. The hilt of the sword was silver and had a feathery appearance. There was a shining clear gem embedded into the hilt that seemed to reflect the light of the stars and moon.

          "What the...?" The leader stepped back in shock.

          The girl chuckled, "You mean you took a mission to kill Phantom Harmony and you didn't know about her feather sword?"

          The lizards exchanged nervous glances. Two of them ran, but the leader remained. He took a fighting stance and took out another dagger so that he was holding one in each clawed hand. He glared at the girl and let a menacing hiss escape his throat, "You might have been a strong demon, Black Angel, but as a human you are weak."

          The girl's cloudy blue eyes lit with amusement as she wagged her finger in a scolding manner, "Tsk tsk tsk...Underestimating your opponent is a fatal mistake."

          The lizard scoffed and charged at her. His movements were slowed greatly by the sand so she easily sidestepped him and knocked him to the ground with the flat of her sword. As he fell he dropped his daggers. After kicking the daggers out of his reach she put her foot on his chest and held the point of her sword up to his neck.

          "If I spare your life you must give me your word that you will leave me alone or else next time I will not be so merciful."

          The lizard gulped and nodded slightly while eyeing the blade nervously. The girl let him up and watched as he ran away. She then called her sword back into a feather and sat down on the sand looking out at the water of the bay. The water's mirror like surface was broken only by the occasional small waves. The night once again fell into silence.

          _Let's take a moment to look over my life, shall we?_

_          'And just who is "we"?' _

_          I'm pretending that this is all part of some crazy story that complete strangers are reading in order to pass their time and that at any given moment they could just click a little 'x' button and CLICK! No more story! So, I wanted to tell those strangers about my life so they know who I am and stuff._

_          'Autumn?'_

_          Yeah-ha?_

_          'No more thinking for you.'_

_          Aww man! But I'm not done telling the readers about my life..._

_          'There are no readers!'_

_          Well why not? Is this a bad story that nobody wants to read? Is my life really that boring?_

_          'There are no readers because this is not a story, baka!'_

_          Oh be quiet. Let me have my fun._

_          'Tch, fine.'_

_          Anyway, it's been about a year since I started having these weird dreams about places I didn't know existed. It wasn't until this voice started talking to me in my head that I found out that my dreams are actually memories. At first I thought I had finally gone crazy but then I actually began to listen to the voice. Then I was sure I was crazy._

_          'Are you blaming me for your insanity?'_

_          Yah who else would I be blaming?_

_          'Hmm...Yourself maybe?'_

_          Oh stop being so grumpy._

_          'Just shut up and get back to talking to your imaginary friends'_

_          But, Harmony, how can I shut up and talk at the same time?_

_          'Is it your mission to constantly annoy me?'_

_          GAH! How'd you find out???_

_          'Just continue with your pointless rambling.'_

_          Ok! The voice is actually the demon half of my spirit. We are technically the same person but since we have different personalities we sometimes seem separate. My dreams were her memories. As it turns out, I was a famous fox demon in my past life. Phantom Harmony, a.k.a the Black Angel, was one of the only four survivors of a race of kitsune known as the __Mist__Mountain__ Kitsune. They were killed by a dragon demon that trapped their souls within an amulet made of dark energy. It was Harmony's self-appointed task to hunt down the dragon and destroy that amulet thus releasing the trapped souls. After leaving her former home she met Koenma who convinced her to become a Reikai Tantei in order to help keep some sort of peace in Makai._

_          Well, to make a long story short, Harmony, on her quest to destroy the amulet, met up with a few different demons. She met Tenka Hikage, Lord over a tribe of rabbit demons known as the Kiri Mori Rabbits. He is cursed to remain physically a child for the rest of his life. He cast the curse on himself so he doesn't really mind. Harmony also met Lioness, a lion hanyou (half demon) from the Sky Lion tribe. Lioness became sort of like an older sister to Harmony and Tenka became sort of Harmony's adopted son. She also met an annoying little orange bird, Jouka, which followed her around forever more. _

_          Harmony met Youko Kurama one day while she was in the woods near her house. As cheesy as it may be she fell in love with him that day as they talked. Decades later she met him again when he was stealing from the __Temple__ of __Storms__ and she let him get away with it. He hinted at the fact that he loved her and actually kissed her...aww!_

_          'Oh shut up'_

_          Anyway, Harmony fled to Ningenkai some time after that for two reasons: 1) She wanted to avoid having to complete a mission to kill him and 2) An oracle had told her that she wouldn't be able to destroy the amulet unless she achieved spiritual balance or some such junk._

_          That's where I come in! Well...actually I came in a bit later...or technically I was there all along since I'm part of Harmony's spirit but yeah..._

_          All of this was quite fascinating to me. _

_          'Oh really? Then why did you conveniently seem to fall asleep every time I started telling you this story?"_

_          Because, Harmony, you're boring._

_          'Oh gee thanks.'_

_          You're very welcome. Now as I was saying I found all of this to be quite fascinating. I mean, if you're going to be insane and talk to a voice in your head it might as well be a cool voice, ne?_

_          During the summer I got involved in one of the new Reikai Tantei's missions and met Kurama's human form. The mission was to recover some sort of crystal feather. They were being 'helped' by a seer lady known as Nuala. My friends Margaret, Hinote, and Flash got involved in that mission too. So did my rabbit, Freckles, Hinote's dog, Tundra, and Margaret's cat, Precious. That mission became quite crazy and hectic. We met up with Dariken, Harmony's older brother, and Thorn, a dragon demon that happens to be the daughter of Harmony's enemy. At one point Freckles and the other animals we had with us were able to talk...and sing....it was horrible. Kurama figured out about Harmony since I wasn't really doing a good job at hiding my secret. Stuff happened, yadda yadda, and at the end we got the crystal back and I got Kurama's phone number so we could keep in touch._

_          After that there were a few more missions. The second mission, which took place around Christmas, was to find Phantom Harmony. Yeah, not good. Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara came as foreign exchange students to my school. The first day he was there Kurama and I became boyfriend and girlfriend. That day we got a riddle thing from Koenma that was supposed to be a clue to help find Harmony. Kurama was trying to help me keep the secret but pretty soon Hiei figured it out. _

_          Then we went to Makai because of another riddle. We investigated around the __Mist__Mountains__. Nuala turned Freckles into a rabbit demon. As it turns out he is the reincarnation of Tenka Hikage, Harmony's dear little friend. Emphasis on little. At the same time the mission was going on I was having dreams about what happened to Harmony's family. They were really depressing but, according to Tenka, necessary for the completion of Harmony's quest. _

_          After a third riddle we went to investigate the __Temple__ of __Storms__. It was there that I got into a fight with Nuala. Harmony and I finally opened up our minds to each other which sort of brought our spirit into balance and using our combined strengths we won the fight. Then we met Zero, Thorn's twin brother. He had been working with Nuala and had helped to set up this whole thing. In the end Harmony destroyed the amulet and all of us got to enjoy a nice holiday party at Thorn's._

_          Next, Zero escaped from Reikai prison and came to Ningenkai to ask me for help. Apparently, he had been cursed to turn into a human by a wolf demon, Megumi. Megumi was the niece of a friend of Harmony's mother. I agreed to help Zero. Eventually we joined up with my friend OkageHime, Flash, and the Reikai Tantei who were looking for Zero. Megumi turned me, Flash, and OkageHime into animals. That was pretty fun, except when Flash and OkageHime dropped me from the air. We went on a long journey to regain our former selves. Zero and I argued a lot but after a while he started warming up to us. Eventually we got turned back and had a run in with Zero's father who kidnapped me, OkageHime, and Flash. Harmony put our lives in danger by taunting the guard and Flash got to use a katana to kick some demon butt. After that I got amnesia at one point because I was blackmailing Yusuke with a videotape of him in a bunny suit. Sounds like loads of fun, ne?_

_          Recently things have been pretty quiet...Unless you count the assassin demons that keep coming after me. _

_          'I am so going to murder Koenma...'_

_          Hinote recently discovered that he has a demon half too. His demon half is __Vladimir__. __Vladimir__ is a vampire. A really old vampire and I mean REALLY old. 12,824 years old to be precise. Apparently he and Kurama had known each other long ago. They were really good friends. I wonder how he'll react to finding out that __Vladimir__, or Vlaud for short, is back?_

_          Flash also has a demon half. Her demon half is Lioness, Harmony's close friend. Harmony was really surprised to find out that Flash was Lioness because Lioness had disappeared about 200 years ago in some tournament thingy against some demon dude named Crone.  _

_          This leads me to my present location. It's about __midnight__ on Friday April 2, 2004. I'm sitting here at the bay looking at the reflection of the crescent moon. It's so much quieter here than at my house. I came here to think about how much life can change in a short amount of time. _

_          I miss Kurama...I haven't seen him since Valentine's Day! Sure, I've been talking to him on the phone but it's just not the same. I wish there was another mission or something..._

_          'Someone's coming!'_

          Autumn sat still and focused on the approaching footsteps. The footsteps ceased about a foot or two away from where she sat. Silence followed as neither Autumn nor the newcomer moved. A deep male voice finally broke the silence.

          "Hello Autumn or should I say Phantom?"

          Autumn tensed but did not turn around. She held the seagull feather tightly preparing for another fight. When she didn't respond the figure behind her took another step forward. This caused Autumn to stand and turn around to face him with a fighting stance. 

          "Ah. So you did hear me." The man chuckled.

          He was wearing a black and purple robe. His eyes were closed. He had many ears and a couple of horns. His long black hair moved slightly in the wind as he stood there seeming not to be paying attention. He seemed familiar to Autumn but she couldn't figure out why or why he had his eyes closed.

          "Who are you?" Autumn asked.

          The figure gave a slight bow, "My name is Yomi. I was a companion of Youko Kurama's a long time ago."

          _That's why he looks so familiar! He's from the show! That also explains why he's got his eyes closed..._Autumn nodded in understanding.

          "Why are you here?" She was still tense. 

          Yomi frowned slightly, "An enemy of Kurama's is after his life."

          "Have you told him?" Autumn asked, relaxing.

          "No. Kurama and I are no longer close. I have no desire to speak to him but I do not wish to see him killed."

          "So...why tell me?"

          "I figured you would be able to protect him."

          Autumn was twirling the feather between her fingers. She stopped and looked up at Yomi. "And how exactly am I to do that when he's in Japan and I am not?"

          "I've already gotten that worked out. You and two others will be sent to Tokyo as foreign exchange students. While there you will keep an eye on Kurama."

          Autumn smiled at the thought, "Who are the two others?"

          "Flash a.k.a Lioness and Hinote a.k.a Vladimir." Yomi waved his hand to indicate that that wasn't an important detail.

          "I thought so. Do they know yet?"

          Yomi nodded and laughed a bit, "Yes. Unlike you, they were at home at such a late hour of the night."

          "Morning. It's past midnight so it's an early hour of the morning not a late hour of the night." Autumn pointed out while grinning.

          Yomi shook his head, "So technical. Fine, what are you doing out here at such an early hour of the morning?"

          "Enjoying the scenery and thinking about things." Autumn answered. She started twirling the feather between her fingers again, "So when are we leaving and where are we staying?"

          "You will be leaving on Thursday. Flash will be staying with her aunt and uncle. Hinote will be staying with the spirit detective, Yusuke. You will be staying with Kurama's family. The three of you will be staying in Tokyo for the rest for the school year and into the summer. Perhaps longer. It depends on how long it takes for you to stop Karasu."

          Autumn nodded and there was silence for a moment until Yomi's words sunk in. "WOOT! I get to stay with Kurama!" she squealed happily.

          Yomi shook his head and chuckled. Autumn frowned when she realized the last thing he had said. "Karasu? You mean that bomb guy Kurama fought in the Dark Tournament? Isn't he you know...dead?"

          "He survived, barely, and was healed back to full health. Now he's going after Kurama again." Yomi had his hands in his pockets.

          "Well that sucks." Autumn was starting to lose focus again as her mind drifted to thoughts of marshmallow fluff.

          Yomi decided that, since Autumn wasn't asking questions, he would say the rest of what he had to say before she completely spaced out. He held out to her an envelope which snapped her attention back from the fluff to him. "This is a letter to your mother saying what you've been told just now about going to Tokyo as a foreign exchange student. It also contains the plane tickets for you and your friends. DO NOT LOSE THEM."

          "Why does everyone always assume that I'll lose things? I don't lose things. I misplace them and then never see them again." Autumn grumbled.

          "Now remember, DO NOT mention my name to anyone other than Flash and Hinote and even then be careful." 

          Autumn took the envelope and saluted even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Yes sir! I'm sure working for you will be much more fun than working for Koenma ever was!"

          "Good luck and goodbye." Yomi said before leaving.

          Autumn sat back down on the sand to look at the bay again.

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Dream: alright! So, how was it? Let me know in a review.

Zero: This fanfic site has been down a lot recently don't you think?

Dream: yeah, eventually I'm going to start putting my fanfics on my website but that's not too high on my priority list right now. 

Zero: you have a priority list?

Dream: Yup! See the thing that's first on my priority list for tomorrow is updating my cyoa. Then I have that banner I have to make for mike...and then maybe the next chapter of this or something...

Zero: well reader people, as you can see this story is going to be pretty long. 

Dream: It's really weird...while I was summarizing my first three stories I realized that Echoes in the Wind was the one that seemed to have the longest summary. Maybe that story just had a lot more important stuff in it...Oh well! I'm off to do whatever now! Ja ne!


	2. Preparing for the worst

Dream: Hello people! Today is a sad sad day indeed...no wait...it should be a happy day since I actually started typing the second chapter...no maybe...is confusing herself

Zero: . just forget about today being any kind of special day. It's a day. Leave it at that.

Dream: good idea Zero! -switches into the sweet voice she uses with her pets- you're such a smart dragon! Yes you are! Yes you are! messes up his hair good boy!

Zero: -eye twitching rapidly-

Dream: -still using sweet voice- Here have a biscuit! -takes out a box of dog biscuits-

Zero: urge to kill...rising...-glares at Dream-

Dream: open wide dwaggy waggy! -holds a biscuit above Zero's head-

Zero: -takes the biscuit and shoves it into Dream's mouth forces her to swallow then dumps the box over her head-

Dream: -blinks- ...-glares at Zero- BAD DRAGON! To the yard with you! -puts a collar and leash around his neck and drags him out to the backyard-

Zero: can't...breathe... -clawing at collar-

Dream: -attaches the leash to a dog house sitting in the yard- now you sit here and think about what you've done!

Zero: -thinks about what he did and laughs-

Dream: -throws a doggy dish at him-

* * *

Preparing for the worst:

That Sunday Autumn's mom called Shiori to talk about Autumn staying there. Shiori had also gotten a letter but she had yet to tell Kurama. She was waiting for him to get home from school which would be soon.

Autumn was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor watching her mom closely. She had plans. Yes, evil plans. The kind of plans that form when she's bored and has the patience to deal with her demon half. Her plans involved surprising Kurama with her visit. He would pay for surprising her at her school and giving her a reason to make a fool out of herself in front of her classmates. The only problem was that her mom wasn't listening to her and she had to act fast before Kurama got home from school.

"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Hey. Mom. Mom. Mm. Helloooooooooooo. Mom." Autumn was trying to get her mom's attention...and failing miserably.

Her mom was saying something about Autumn and Kurama being in rooms on opposite ends of the hallway. They had been talking about things like that for ten minutes. Autumn had been keeping track of how long. She sighed in frustration. It was time for some new tactics courtesy of Autumn's overactive imagination. She walked out of the room.

Moments later she came back with one of those big drum things strapped to her chest and a whole bunch of ribbons and flags that say 'Look at me!' She also had a whistle in her mouth. She started beating the drum and blowing the whistle.

Her mom didn't notice.

Autumn sighed and left the room again. She came back a moment later wearing a top hat and tap shoes. She was holding one of those show cane things. She started doing a little tap dance skit she picked up off of TV. As a finale she slid down onto one knee with her arms stretched out in the air. In one hand she was holding the hat and in the other she was holding the cane.

Her mom had been writing something down the whole time.

Autumn's eye twitched in frustration. She left the room again to find another cartoon influenced thing to do. She came back with her jacket and walked out the door. There was some shouting and yelling from outside. Autumn came in dragging a clown by the nose. Crying could be heard from the yard a few houses away as the poor birthday boy mourned the loss of his entertainment.

The clown smiled nervously at Autumn when she let him go. He had a right to be nervous. She was dangerous. After all she had just hopped the fence into the yard of a person she didn't even know while the clown was making balloon animals, hit him over the head with a rubber chicken, and then dragged him off down the street by his nose after hissing at any children that had yelled at her. He had been clown-napped by a crazy teenage girl. He wondered if it was 'that time of the month' again.

The girl grabbed his red poofy nose again and pulled it on its string. She then let it go so it snapped back and hit him. He let out a yelp and clutched his nose. He then glared at her and took a pie out of his pocket. Now normally when somebody takes a pie out of their pocket you'd expect it to be all smushed and lint covered but no. This pie was perfectly formed. It had no lint at all and even had a cherry sitting on top of its creamy cover.

Autumn stared in amazement. She wondered if the clown was magical. In reality he was the 'beautiful' Suzuka. He had taken a job as a clown because he had nothing better to do with his life and he figured that if he got enough human children to love him he would eventually be able to take over Ningenkai with his army of clown loving brats. Unfortunately things weren't going quite as he planned since he had gotten clown-napped on the first day of his job.

As Autumn was staring at the pie Suzuka threw it at her. Autumn watched in awe as the pie gracefully flew through the air doing a couple flips and finally hitting her face with a loud 'SPLAT' as pie cream flew all over the kitchen. The pie pan fell onto the floor to reveal Autumn's face completely covered in pie and the cherry sitting on top of her head. Autumn wiped the pie away from her eyes. Her eyes were narrow slits as she glared at the clown in front of her.

Suzuka laughed nervously and offered her a balloon animal dog. He was stunned as Autumn squealed in delight and hugged the balloon animal. She had apparently completely forgotten about the pie that was still covering her face. She was much too busy squeezing the life out of the balloon animal dog. Suzuka took this as a golden opportunity to try and sneak away. He started tiptoeing toward the door. Suzuka stopped and stared at the door. The wooden door was open leaving just the outer door which had a small screened window in it. Peering in through the window was a red fox with black stripes on his ears and legs.

The fox had been fast asleep in the bush outside. He had not woken up because of the yelling and shouting. No, not even the children crying had woken him up. The fox had woken up because he smelled pie. Yes folks, it was the fox's mouth full of sweet teeth and super sweets sensor in his nose that had caused him to wake up. He had his front paws on the screen with his nails clinging to it and his back paws on the other part of the door.

For a long time Suzuka and the fox stared at each other. Every so often one of them would blink. They both seemed not to notice the girl in the background dancing around holding the balloon dog over her head which still had pie cream and a cherry on it. They were much too busy staring at each other. Now Suzuka was wondering why there was a fox clinging to the door. The fox was wondering if the Easter bunny was made of chocolate and developing plans to find out. They continued to stare at each other until a loud popping sound rang through the kitchen. The clown turned to look and the fox craned his neck to see around the clown.

Autumn was standing there staring at the pieces of balloon she was holding. Her little balloon dog friend had finally had enough of the hugging and had popped right in front of her. She was saddened to have lost her good friend. It then suddenly occurred to her that she was still covered in pie cream. She turned her head slowly to glare at Suzuka.

Suzuka laughed nervously as he watched the girl take out her rubber chicken and advance slowly toward him. He then turned and bolted out the door. He pushed the door open causing it to swing out and almost hit into the house. The fox, who was still clinging to the door, sighed in relief that it hadn't hit the house. Then Autumn burst through the closing door pushing it open again. This time the door did smack into the side of the house. The fox, having still been clinging to the door, was slammed into the wall by the door causing him to release his hold on the screen. After the door closed, the fox slid down the wall onto the ground where he lay twitching with swirls in his eyes.

The man living in the house between Autumn's house and the house with the ruined birthday party walked out onto his porch with his coffee and a newspaper. He had just woken up since he had work late in the afternoon and into the night. He sat down at the porch table and held up his coffee to take a sip as his other hand opened the newspaper. He opened his eyes that had been closed up until this point and stopped to stare at his neighbor's yard on the right.

The kids were starting to smash furniture. They had bound and gagged all the adults before hanging them upside down from trees. The kids were wearing clothes made from leaves. They had leaves in their hair and finger-paint on their faces, arms, and legs. They were circling the tree the adults were hanging from and chanting about wanting their clown back.

He then turned his attention to his neighbor's yard on the left. There was a girl with pie cream and a cherry on her head. She was chasing a clown around the yard while waving a rubber chicken in the air like a maniac. She finally caught the clown and started beating him ruthlessly with the rubber chicken which, oddly enough, made a metal clunk noise every time it connected with the clown's head. The clown was now begging for mercy. The girl wasn't listening. The neighbor man also saw a fox, lying by the wall of the house, which had eight tails.

He calmly set down his coffee and closed his newspaper. He then got up out of his chair and calmly went back into the house. Once inside he retrieved his phone and promptly called a real estate agent. Minutes later he went outside to put up a 'For Sale' sign on his front yard. As he was about to go back inside he saw the bruised and beaten clown run past screaming about never coming to Ningenkai again. The clown then promptly ran through a swirly portal that appeared out of nowhere. The portal vanished and there was no sign of the clown. The soon-to-be-ex-neighbor man calmly went back inside and started packing.

In Autumn's backyard Autumn was finally calm. Beating a clown up with a rubber chicken is a wonderful stress reliever. She then noticed the fox lying on the ground and walked over to poke him with her foot. The fox sat up quickly. His eyes widened when he saw her covered in pie. He tackled her and started licking the pie off her face while his tails wagged happily. Autumn wondered if he was a puppy disguised as a fox. After Autumn was, for the most part, clean she and the fox both walked inside her house into the kitchen.

There were some splatters of pie around the kitchen which were quickly cleaned by the fox. Autumn's jaw dropped as she stared at her mom. During this whole thing her mom had been washing dishes while still talking to Shiori on the phone. The fox, after having finished cleaning the pie splatters, joined Autumn in staring at her mom in disbelief.

Autumn stormed out of the room and came back moments later carrying five socks. Oh but they weren't just socks. They were...SOCK PUPPETS! Yes, these five ordinary socks had been magically transformed into sock puppets within a matter of seconds by the power of glue, string, buttons, and markers! Each sock puppet was similarly designed with yarn glued sloppily to the top of their heads, some buttons sewn on as eyes, and mouths drawn with markers.

Autumn chose two sock puppets and tossed them to the fox. One sock puppet had black yarn glued to its head and brown button eyes. He squinted at it and tilted his head to the side. It sort of looked like Yusuke. The other sock puppet had blobs of glue for eyes and some orange...stuff...glued to its head. He assumed it was supposed to be Kuwabara since it was quite sickening to look at. He put one sock puppet on each of his front paws.

Autumn put a sock puppet on her right hand. It had long red yarn glued to its head and big green button eyes. The sock puppet she had on her left hand had red buttons for eyes and black yarn standing straight up from its head. She looked at the fifth puppet. It was colored green with marker and had two yellow button eyes. It also had some horns sticking out from the top. Autumn looked around for some place to put it. It was then that Freckles the rabbit decided to make his entrance. He stopped next to the fox and sniffed at him. Autumn grinned evilly, took the sock puppet and rubbed it on the nearby carpet to statically charge it and then stuck it on Freckles' head so that it was standing up.

Freckles looked miserable. The puppet show then started as Autumn and the fox moved their puppets to be attacking the monster. Autumn provided necessary sound effects and voices. Their puppet show lasted for a while and ended as Autumn caused a mini explosion which covered the three and their puppets in soot. They looked at Autumn's mom.

She was still talking on the phone.

Autumn sighed in frustration and started racking her brain for any other way to get her mom's attention. Her thoughts were interrupted by a little tune that started playing seemingly from nowhere. After looking around for a bit she realized what it was. She quickly opened the window just in time to allow the fox to jump out. She closed the window and watched the fox chasing the ice cream truck down the street.

Autumn then sat down and started banging her head on the floor.

"Autumn, what are you doing?" her mom asked.

Autumn's eyes grew wide, "You mean I've been trying everything I could think of to get your attention for the past 25 minutes and all I had to do was bang my head on the floor?!?"

"...yes?"

"ARGH!" Autumn yelled in frustration.

"Well now that you have my attention, what is it that you want?"

Autumn sighed, "I want you to tell Shiori that I don't want Shuichi to know I'm coming. I'm gonna surprise him like he surprised me."

"Ok." Her mom answered before repeating that to Shiori.

Autumn smiled, "When Kurama gets home I have to ask for Yusuke's phone number so I can make sure Yusuke won't tell anyone we're coming."

She then went to her room and looked at her unpacked suitcases. "Hmm...To pack or not to pack...?" She spotted one of her Petshop of Horrors manga and smirked, "...that is never the question."

She picked up the manga and quickly forgot all about packing.

Meanwhile:

Hinote had a suitcase sitting on the floor. It was one of those wheeling suitcases. It was black in color and medium in size. It was being reserved for clothes only. Next to it he had a black backpack where he'd put some other stuff. His grandmother had insisted that he needed more than two bags since he'd be staying for so long but Hinote said that if he needed anything else he'd buy it once he got to Japan. Yomi was providing the three of them with money. They couldn't exactly figure out where he got the money though.

Of course they had theories. Hinote thought that Yomi was actually the leader of the Makai mafia and that he collected daily tribute from all his loyal followers. Flash figured that Yomi used his amazing nonexistent ninja skills to sneak into government buildings and steal money. Autumn thought that Yomi was keeping a goose that laid golden eggs like the one in Jack and the Beanstalk.

How Hinote sees Yomi:

Yomi is sitting behind a desk with a few pillows stuffed under his robe to create the illusion of a big belly. His face is rounded and he's got gold jewelry all over him. He's also holding a fat cigar between his ringed fingers. A whole bunch of lowly peasant demons were bowing and offering all their possessions. The peasants were all in a line. One by one they came up and presented their possessions. The first brought potatoes. The second brought a bronze statue. The third spontaneously combusted. The fourth brought a chicken.

How Flash sees Yomi:

Yomi is dressed in black ninja garments that leave only his eyes visible. He is creeping along the ceiling of a bank. He drops down silently and opens the vault. There's no money in the bank. Not even a piece of money. Yomi arches an eyebrow. There on the floor in the middle of the bank is a note. The note has a chibi flash giving a victory sign and has the words 'Too late!' written on it.

How Autumn sees Yomi:

Yomi is giant and sitting in his castle on a cloud. Yusuke, dressed in elf clothing, climbs up a magical candy cane that grew from the ground. He sneaks into Yomi's castle and starts looking for the golden goose. Next to him is a big map. The map has a star labeled 'You are here.' It has a few highlighted rooms labeled like 'Treasure is here' or 'Potty is here'. He finally sees 'Goose is here' and runs in that direction. As he's running Yomi's foot comes down and squishes him.

That has been a look into the minds of three psychos. Thank you for you time and patience. We will now return to our previously scheduled fanfic, already in progress.

Hinote's bags were empty. He wasn't quite sure what to pack. He figured he'd better look for clothes first so he walked over to his closet and opened it. He started looking through the clothes on the hangers.

"Black, black, black, black, Navy blue, black, black, green, black, black, duck, black, bla--DUCK?!?" Hinote flipped back through his clothes and, sure enough, there was a duck on one of the hangers.

Now this was no ordinary duck. Hinote could tell by the fact that this particular duck was wearing a black suit jacket and black sunglasses. The duck was an all white duck. The duck and Hinote stared at each other for a while. The duck held up a pen like object with some lights facing Hinote.

"Wow, this is like some cheesy _Men in Black_ parody." Hinote said before a blinding light came from the pen. When he finally regained his eyesight there was no duck. There was only a white feather on the ground. "Now how in the world did that get there?" Hinote wondered as he turned back to his clothes.

He started pulling clothes off the hanger and stuffing them into his bag. He had the strangest feeling that someone was watching him but couldn't see anyone so he shook it off. If he had looked out his window he would have seen a duck in a black suit watching him and recording things onto a clipboard.

Hinote finished packing and decided to go for a walk. As he was walking down the street an ice cream truck sped by that must've been going at least 90 mph. Hinote thought that he had seen some kind of red eight tailed blob clinging to the driver's head. He shrugged it off and kept walking. He still felt like somebody was watching him. He decided it would be fun to take a walk over to the candy store and marvel at all the candy.

As he walked through the store he felt like he had finally found a place where he belonged. He started dancing for joy among the candy. People quickly left the store after seeing the dancing boy. They ran far and fast. Hinote did not notice as he was much too happy because of the candy.

Meanwhile:

Flash had finally finished packing. She was taking a black with silver flames wheeled suitcase and a similarly colored backpack. She had packed some clothes and things to do on the plane. She then took out a red bag labeled 'In case of Emergency'. She started packing bandages, a first-aid kit, marshmallow fluff, pocky, coffee, some shiny stuff, and anything else she could think of that might be useful.

She then stood still and wondered what was missing. She looked around her room. She still couldn't figure out what was missing. Suddenly her gaze fell upon an empty bookcase shelf. She blinked a few times trying to remember what belonged there. Her eyes widened and she started frantically searching her room.

"NO!!! This can't be happening!!!" Flash yelled as she finished searching her room and stood there with teary eyes. She then ran down the stairs to see Mary. (A.N: for those of you who have read Winter's story, Lioness, Flash's family and house is the same only they live in America not Japan)

Mary looked up from what she was doing, "Flash? Something wrong?"

"ALL MY MANGA ARE MISSING!!!!!" Flash yelled at the top of her lungs while waving her arms in the air frantically.

Mary got a thoughtful look on her face, "You mean all those backwards books? I threw them all away."

All the color drained from Flash's face. She stood perfectly still and all around her the background changed to black with little blue gloomy swirl things. "You...threw...them...away...?"

"Yes...oh look there's the garbage truck now." Mary pointed out the window at the truck.

Flash snapped out of her daze, "HOW COULD YOU THROW THEM AWAY?!? Don't worry my friends! I'm coming!!!!" with that Flash ran out the door and started chasing the garbage truck.

She chased it through street after street. At one point she passed by an ice cream truck that had crashed into the side of the candy shop. There she saw a red eight-tailed fox and Hinote eating all the ice cream 'to make sure it doesn't go to waste'. She would've stopped to call them a string of insults but the truck was still driving so instead she settled for insulting them while running.

"BAKAS!!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE BOTH PIGS!!! FILTHY PIGS!!!!"

"Hi Flash! Bye Flash!" Hinote said as he waved at the running girl.

While Hinote was waving the fox ate the ice cream that Hinote was holding. The two of them then got into a wrestling match over the last bit of ice cream. Their wrestling match ended when some random little boy walked up and ate the ice cream. Both Hinote and the fox started growling at the boy. The boy started running and screaming as he was chased by the two angry ice cream lovers.

Flash was still chasing the garbage truck while looking over her shoulder at the little boy being chased. She didn't even notice that the truck had stopped at the light. She crashed into it and wound up falling into the garbage. She was buried by the garbage bags and when she stuck her head out from underneath the smelly place of smelly doom she had a banana peel in her hair. She was gasping for breath. She then started looking around frantically.

"Now if I were a bag full of manga where would I be?" Flash wondered out loud as she started digging through all the garbage bags.

She had just found one that looked like it had books in it when the truck stopped and all the garbage was dumped out into the landfill. Since Flash had been on the top she was now buried under the garbage. She swam her way through the large pile of garbage while trying to hold her breath. She started choking and then remembered something. Autumn had given her what had appeared to be a very useless present one day for no reason. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was a snorkel!

Now Flash was swimming through the pile of garbage with the snorkel in her mouth and one end sticking up into the air. She was just about to give up hope when something glowing caught her eye. It was...a jar of radioactive waste! Flash wondered briefly what it was doing in the landfill. Then something else caught her eye or rather her foot.

Flash turned around to untangle her foot from the garbage bag. As she was doing so she realized that the bag was full of book shaped objects. She dragged it to the surface and opened it. Sure enough there was her entire manga collection. She smiled triumphantly and started making her way home smiling the whole time. Sure she was covered from head to toe in garbage and smelled worse than a wet dog that's been rolling around on a week old road pizza but hey, at least her manga were safe.

As Flash passed by the candy shop she saw Hinote and the fox hugging each other while being scolded by a very big woman that happened to be the mother of the little boy. But this was no ordinary woman. No, this woman was wielding the most fearsome weapon one could wield...AN UMBRELLA!

Flash next passed by Autumn's house where Autumn was sitting in one of the trees in her front yard talking to Kurama on the phone. Autumn and Flash waved at each other.

"Umm...Flash why are you covered in garbage?" Autumn asked.

Flash sighed, "Long story. You talking to Kurama?"

"Yuppers."

"HI PANSY!" Flash yelled so Kurama would hear.

Autumn had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Kurama sighed, he was used to Flash calling him that. Flash then remembered the fox and Hinote. "Oh Hinote and Dariken are getting into trouble over at the candy shop. You might want to go help them."

"Those two always get into trouble." Autumn shook her head and sighed. She then hopped out of the tree and walked off to find the two.

Flash walked past Autumn's neighbor's house. He came out to bring some boxes to his car. He spotted her, stared, dropped the box, and calmly went back inside. Flash's next stop was her house. Mary stared at the garbage covered girl.

"Don't ask." Flash said before Mary could speak. Flash walked up the stairs to her room, rearranged the manga on the shelf, and went to take a shower.

* * *

Dream: I had originally intended to end the chapter here but I had the urge to add in something funny that happened to me, Mike (Hinote), and my friend Terry. So here's a bit of a bonus part of the chapter cuz I love you guys and I've taken so long to update. Keep in mind that, though I might have changed the order of how things happened and a couple of the names, the following is not made up and not exaggerated in anyway. This is really how we act. Enjoy!

* * *

The next day:

Autumn, Hinote, and their friend Teresa were walking home from school even though they didn't live all that close to it. They decided it would be fun to stop at a park so they walked over to Westbrook Elementary School and started playing around on the playground.

The playground wasn't all that big and a lot of the stuff was small and designed for well Elementary school kids. The three went on the big yellow slide that had curls in it. They decided to make it a chain thing with each of them clinging to each other while going down single file. This turned out to be disastrous as they kept getting their legs stuck and wound up at the bottom of the slide a big jumbled mess.

It was then time for Hinote to go down the metal slide. This slide was wide. Hinote went down lying on his back and head first. He caught his boots at the top of the slide so he would be able just to lie there and not slide all the way down. Terry walked over and took off Hinote's boots causing him to slide down. She dropped the boots on the ground. Hinote then started trying to climb back up the slide but it was not working.

He tried walking quickly and then getting a running start and jumping. He wound up hurting himself. Terry and Autumn were watching in amusement.

"Take your socks off; you'll be able to make it." Terry suggested.

Hinote ignored her and kept trying. Eventually he did make it.

"YAY! You did..." Autumn trailed off as Hinote accidentally let go of the bar and slid back down the slide. He started trying to climb back up again.

In the meantime Terry had found a large orange traffic cone which she was now carrying around with her. After Hinote had given up he and Terry sat down on a bench to catch their breath. Autumn picked up a twig and started digging it into the dirt. She looked up at her friends and grinned.

"I'm digging to China!" she announced proudly and continued digging.

Terry took the cone and put it over her own head. "It smells under here!"

Hinote and Autumn were laughing. Terry took her glasses and put them on the cone to make it look like she was wearing them. Hinote and Autumn were in pain from laughing as Terry started dancing in her seat like that. They soon all went back to playing around on the playground.

Hinote was back at the slide. Autumn took a stick and his boot, "Hinote, I've got your boot hostage!"

"Is it the right or the left?" Hinote asked.

Autumn looked at the boot, "Left."

"Oh ok then." Hinote went back to what he was doing.

Autumn shrugged and dropped the boot. She went and got the right one. "Now I've got your RIGHT boot hostage."

"MR. SHOE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hinote yelled as he stopped what he was doing and ran at Autumn in order to recover his boot. She burst out laughing and gave back the boot which Hinote then hugged.

The three teens played around for a bit more until a bunch of young boys (A.N: probably around 3rd or 4th grade) came over to the playground. They basically picked a fight with the teens by kicking Hinote's head while he was lying upside down in a tube slide. Terry threw the cone at the kids. Or rather at the slide, the kids just happened to be there too.

One of the little boys tried throwing it at Terry. The cone fell to the ground two inches away. The teens started laughing. The boys then left for a bit after saying some curses to the teens. Terry walked over and put the cone over one boy's head. The boy started punching and kicking at Terry but succeeded only in knocking himself off balance and onto the ground. The three teens were in pain from laughing.

That same boy glared at Terry, "You suck rotten asshole!" (A.N: yes the boy actually said that)

"What? Is that even possible?" Terry was still laughing. The boys walked away in anger. A few minutes later they came back with a woman that was most likely their mother.

She glared at the teens, "So you have a problem with little kids?"

"No, but apparently they have a problem with us." Autumn answered with a hint of laughter.

The mother glared, "You think it's funny to curse kids out?"

"What are you talking about? _They_ cursed _us_ out!" Hinote said.

The woman was still glaring. Terry pointed at the boy, "He called me a well told me that I suck rotten but hole!"

"Only more vulgar than that." Autumn added.

The woman gave Autumn a nasty look for implying that her 'little angels' would say curses. "You three better leave, I'm calling the police." With that the woman stormed off with her little lemmings following behind. (A.N: funny thing about lemmings. They travel in large groups and it was actually recorded that once a few lemmings fell off a cliff and all the other lemmings ran off after them. Lemming see, lemming do.)

Autumn, Hinote, and Terry didn't want to give the woman the satisfaction so they hung around for a while longer on the playground. At one point they heard sirens that sounded like they were getting closer.

"Are those sirens getting closer?" Autumn asked.

"Sounds like it." Terry answered.

Hinote frowned, "Come on! We won't get in trouble! Do we look like the kind of kids that would harass children?"

Autumn looked back and forth between Terry and Hinote. She laughed nervously, "umm..."

Hinote rolled his eyes, "Seriously, do we look like the kind of kids that would harass children?"

Autumn looked back and forth between Terry and Hinote again. Terry looked surprised, "Me?"

Autumn looked back at Hinote and laughed nervously again. Hinote sighed in frustration. A while later they decided that they had to head home and started walking to the exit. As they were walking they noticed that the woman and her lemmings were sticking their heads out the windows of their car watching them.

Autumn started waving. Then Terry and Hinote started waving. Hinote lived on the next block so he went home right away. He would later see the woman in her car driving up and down his block looking for him. Terry and Autumn were almost at Autumn's house when the woman started following them in the car. They would take a few steps and she would be right behind them driving slowly. After a bit the woman finally gave up following them. And so ended another hectic day in the life of the three trouble magnets.

* * *

Dream: well, I've finally finished the 2nd chapter of Hikari no Naka de. Just to let you know this chapter has been in the works since April 8th. So many things have been working against me recently and finals will be starting in a few weeks. Though that will be good because I'll have more free time to work on stories. Studying? Naw, who needs to study? I've got more important things to worry about! Like finishing these fanfics.

Zero: You don't care if you fail?

Dream: They shouldn't be that hard and besides I rarely ever study for tests. Oh, I'm going to try and update Anime Idiots Convention today too but I can't guarantee anything because I do have a lot of homework I should be doing instead but I have this strict 'No Homework til the afternoon' rule and seeing as how it's 11:45 AM I still have some time to kill. Yeah, well I guess that's all. Review please! Your comments are greatly appreciated!


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